Pricing wars will continue, ILEA report says

A report from the International Live Events Association (ILEA) says it's crucial that the industry finds new ways to differentiate live events.

Called Unifying the Live Events Industry, the report points out that every service event producers offer can be sourced online, whether it's areas like idea generation, templates, timelines or budgets.

Because these services have become distinct products, it means they can be commoditized, the report says.

"If nothing changes, the pricing wars will continue, and many events professionals will end up on the losing end," it said.

"To differentiate ourselves from the assortment of products available to anyone on the internet, we must consider what we can do that is proprietary."

The report says the live events industry has "unique value" with the key being how this is communicated, in tandem with the "wave of technology" as well as the aim of being able to "innovate to survive".

The report concludes: "As scary as it is to many in the industry, we need to focus on data. Data collection, data analytics - eventually, every event team will include a data analyst who helps guide event design and logistics based on hard numbers.

"Having measurable results, embracing data and making it part of the culture will keep the professional events industry a step ahead of what nonprofessionals can do."

Data may itself become an output, it added, with one goal of an event as producing data that could potentially be sold on.